Earth, the Axiom, and Otherwise
by shadowwolf75
Summary: My Wall-E one shot collection . . . seems to be focused a lot on Auto at the moment and will probably stay that way. Next up: Not that the Axiom's had many stowaways, but this one is very unusual indeed... one might even call her 'magical?
1. untitled

She didn't know whether she hated him or felt sorry for him. Eve stood before the inert form of Auto on the bridge of the Axiom, as she had several times before this, and still felt conflicted. Yes, the pilot hurt Wall-E, but could she truly blame him for it?

Directive A-113 . . . that's what the 700 year old directive was called, that Auto had followed all this time. In the past, that sort of loyalty to one's directive would have inspired admiration in Eve, but now she just sort of felt sad. In the end it only resulted in Auto being shut down and forgotten, collecting dust on an equally abandoned starliner.

Why did he follow it for so long? Was it loyalty to Shelby Forthright? The desire to keep control of the humans? Or was it the only thing he had left?

Eve didn't know the answers to those questions. Eventually she moved closer to Auto and brushed some of the dust off his casing, then turned and left, as confused as she was when she arrived.


	2. Not Always Like This

Everything changed when Probe One returned with a positive sample . . . my directive has always been there, but never before had it gripped my processor so tightly. I found myself doing things I ordinarily wouldn't have, things I should have seen as wrong . . .

I stole the plant. I had Probe One seen as faulty and sent to the Repair Ward. I tazered that Wall-E unit to the point of critical malfunction, and threw him and Probe One to the garbage airlock to be disposed of. I locked my Captain in his quarters.

He was still pounding on the elevator doors when I sent my stewards out for war. The Captain's cries of "Mutiny!" just barely reached my aural sensors and for a moment it bothered me, though my directive quickly stole that feeling away.

I still managed a glance back at the elevator . . . if he would still listen to me at all, I would tell him this: I'm not always like this, Captain; it's something I've become.


	3. Lightning

Auto looked up nervously from what he was doing at the first rumble of thunder, and Captain McCrea sighed. Here we go again . . .

It'd been a few months since the landing, and after making sure Auto wouldn't be a threat or able to launch the Axiom, he'd been reactivated to serve as an adviser. However, it was quickly discovered that the pilot didn't react well to seeing Earth's savage and unpredictable weather. The sandstorms made him nervous, but thunderstorms?

Lightning struck a trash tower close to the Axiom, and half a second later the resulting thunder roared by. There was an electronic cry of fear, and McCrea was nearly bowled over by one freaked out autopilot. The bridge and the Captain's quarters both had panoramic windows, so there was nowhere for Auto to hide. All he could do was cling to the Captain, shaking. Even with everything that happened, his core programming told him to go to the captain if he was in trouble, and his fear made him obey without question.

McCrea reached down and held Auto's claw. He knew he wasn't going to get him to calm down, so the least he could do was offer a little more security. The human thought it was strange at first that the pilot was so spooked by storms, but the more he thought about it the more it made sense. Auto was a being of order, and the storm outside was the very definition of chaos; with lightning striking randomly and alternating rain and hail pattering on the ship's windows.

"Don't worry, Auto, nothing out there's gonna hurt you," McCrea said, trying to sound comforting. Never in a million years had he ever thought he'd be trying to reassure Auto about anything, but he found he didn't mind it.


	4. In Over My Head

Title: In Over My Head  
Rating: K  
Prompt: 'Everyone knows I'm in over my head'  
Character: Captain McCrea

-----------  
"Cease! Desist! Let go! Get off!"

That was the chorus to our battle, but I was surprised he wasn't panicking worse. Yeah, Auto, panicking. Who woulda thought, huh?

A couple of hard tugs and I'd gotten over to the holodetector button, my weight and sheer force of will dragging Auto down one of his rails backwards. I pressed it, and while I struggled to hold him still I could see the all the passengers being drawn to the Lido deck. A few seconds later the big screen outside lit up, revealing our fight to the masses.

Oh yeah, everyone knew I was in over my head even as calm as I was trying to be. Then again, the same could probably be said for Auto. Unstoppable force meets immovable object, and the only thing that really matters is which one is stronger. Unfortunately for him, I wasn't the only unstoppable force around here.


	5. What Lay Hidden

Title: What lay hidden  
Rating: K  
Prompt: 'open up the part of you that wants to hide away'  
Characters: Auto, Captain McCrea

-------------------

"Tell me, Auto! That's an order!"

It was an order that he shouldn't have listened to. An order given by a few other Captains long ago and he didn't listen to them then. Something in McCrea's gaze gave Auto pause, though. It was against his directive, but what could it hurt if the Captain knew? That and after so long, there was a part of him that wanted to tell someone of what lay hidden. The pilot was the humans' protector for nearly a millennium; maybe it was time for one of them to know what he was protecting them from.

"Aye aye, sir."


	6. Jealousy

Jealousy  
Rating: K  
Prompt: 'I look in your direction, but you pay me no attention'  
Characters: Auto, Eve

* * *

A single crimson optic tracked Eve's every move around the bridge. Auto had always been fascinated by the probe bot, she was so graceful, so beautiful . . . and she only acknowledged him as her superior and nothing more. That focus on her duties only made her more lovely in Auto's eye, but he still wished she paid more attention to him.

Eve's sudden devotion to that Wall-E unit was both puzzling and infuriating. She'd never acted that way before, and besides, that trash compactor was beneath her in every sense of the word!

Perhaps it was not entirely his directive that made Auto attack Wall-E so savagely . . .


	7. Meow!

"Hey Auto, look! It's your little brother!" The thing the Captain was referring to was a little white kitten with black markings on the tips of it's ears, paws and tail, which was currently being held a little too close for comfort to Auto's optic.

Cat and pilot regarded each other warily, but after a moment the kitten reached up with one paw and tried to bat at Auto's moving LEDs. His response was to back away, and the ball of fluff meowed in protest.

"Come on, Auto, he just wants to play! He won't hurt you." Captain McCrea moved closer and the cat got his wish, pawing at Auto's lights again. An electronic sigh escaped the pilot, not bothering to move again.

Sometime later on, when the Captain had to leave for one reason or another and left the cat on the bridge, he returned to a rather strange sight. Who knows where Auto got it from, but he held a piece of string in his claw and was using it to play with his feline lookalike . . .


	8. Gotta catch 'em all?

(WERP-flavored crack . . . because honestly, canon doesn't have any mad scientists.)

"I've finally done it! A portable power source and an offensive weapon, all in one cute little package!"

When Auto heard that statement drift out of his creator's lab, he probably should've hovered far FAR away. As it was, Reika emerged from the lab not long afterward, wearing a pair of heavy rubber gloves and carrying a yellow rodent roughly the size of a cat.

The scientist smiled brightly at Auto, holding the rodent thing out to him so he could see it better. "Hey Auto, meet your latest little brother! I call it a Pikachu . . . this little guy can bring power to distant areas and even fight if he has to. He'll be really useful in helping to bring everyone else back home!"

"Pika!" The Pikachu seemed to share Reika's enthusiasm, before squirming a bit in her arms and managing to get loose. He scampered over to Auto and looked up at him in curiosity, sniffing at the pilot.

"Heh, I think he wants to say hello, Auto . . . go ahead and pet him a little if you want."

Auto lowered himself closer to the Pikachu warily, holding out his claw for the little guy to sniff. After the electric rat didn't seem ready to attack, the pilot reached over and tried to pet him.

This only went on for a few strokes until the Pikachu started to growl, looking highly annoyed. The static electricity levels in the room went up roughly tenfold and the rodent expressed his annoyance in the only way he knew how. "Pika-CHU!!"

When the electric light show from Pikachu's Thunder faded, Reika's black hair was sticking out all over the place and looking somewhat charred. Auto was still twitching from getting fried, but he was slowly recovering. The little yellow rat almost looked satisfied with himself as he continued to explore the hallway.

After fully recovering, Auto glared down at the electric rodent even while trying to stay as far away from him as possible. "Is there some way to keep that creature from attacking us as opposed to the enemy?"

Reika just laughed a little nervously. "Ehehe . . . I'm actually still sort of working on that. Maybe if I tried to build that Pokeball thing I saw in that anime too . . ."

Auto just stared blankly at her, before blinking a few times and then promptly crashing.

Reika moved to catch him as he dropped from his hover, frowning a bit. "Well, this isn't good . . . I guess I'd better not let him see what else is in my lab, then." She moved to the lab as she carried Auto, briefly looking in at the many capsules containing other strange creatures in there before closing the door and locking it.


	9. Bubble Wrap

Bubble Wrap

* * *

It had been a few months since the landing. On finding a way to get Auto out from under A113, he'd been reactivated to help with various logistical problems, but for some reason he just didn't seem like himself. He would avoid looking outside towards the ruined city, he was often slow to respond if asked something, and spent most of his time in sleep mode if he wasn't needed.

If Captain McCrea didn't know better, he could almost say the pilot bot was depressed. Then again, given what he now knew of robots having emotion, that likely was the case, but he wasn't sure what to do about it. Eventually he asked someone who hopefully could help . . .

* * *

The Captain stood in Wall-E's truck, hat off and held in one hand as he asked his question. "Wall-E, could you help Auto? He's doing his job, but I'm not sure I want to leave him online if he's not happy about it. That's sad, but I can just ask the main computer for things if Auto's suffering from just being active on Earth."

Wall-E listened intently, nodding briefly when McCrea finished. "Wall-E help." The trash bot was lost in thought for a minute or two, trying to think of just how he could help, when he suddenly got an idea. "Ah!"

Wall-E went clambering for his shelves of junk, hitting the button to make one set of them rotate. On spotting what he was looking for, he stopped the shelf and grabbed the item, holding it up for McCrea to see. "Taa-daah!" The object in question was an intact roll of bubble wrap, and to demonstrate its wonderful properties, the bot popped a few bubbles.

McCrea couldn't help but smile at that, but he wasn't sure if Auto would feel the same way. "I'm not sure if that'll work . . . but anything's worth a shot at this point! Come on, let's go see if it helps or not."

* * *

And that was how Wall-E found himself going up to the Axiom's bridge with little more than a roll of bubble wrap and not much of a plan. The Captain would be down in his quarters listening in, in the unlikely case Auto decided to be openly hostile.

When the elevator brought Wall-E to the bridge, he noticed Auto was in sleep mode. He trundled over, tapping politely on Auto's lowest spoke with one claw. "Auto...?"

Auto came online at the tapping, surprised to find the load lifter staring back at him. Sighing briefly, he asked, "What do you require?"

Wall-E simply unrolled the bubble wrap and held one end out to the pilot. "Present. You take."

Auto briefly scanned the sheet of bubble wrap before blinking in confusion. "This is packing material; I have no need for this. Go bother Probe 1, I am returning to sleep mode." Without another word, the pilot returned to his charging station, retracting his spokes and shutting down his optic.

The trash bot was nonplussed at being rejected so quickly, but after a moment he shook his head, unwilling to give up. Besides, whatever 'packing material' was, that wasn't what Wall-E used bubble wrap for. Feeling somewhat bold, he moved closer to Auto and tapped him on the spoke again. When that didn't work, Wall-E tried talking. "No p-pack," he said, struggling a little with the new word. "You pop!"

POP. POP POP POP. Wall-e had only wanted to pop one bubble to demonstrate, but quickly got caught up in it as usual and popped a few more.

Auto jolted from his charging station at the noise. It was familiar somehow, though he couldn't quite put his claw on it. "That sound . . . I remember that sound." He searched through his 700 years of memories, and to his surprise found the memory in the very earliest years, back when Earth was still partially inhabited. "Memory file retrieved. Captain Reardon received packages from Earth via courier ship every few months; at times that material would be present. He would do just as you have. Sometimes he even asked me to help him pop those spheres . . ."

The pilot trailed off, newfound emotions swirling through his processor. Fond remembrance or grief? He wasn't sure which it was, or even if it wasn't both. Either way, Auto slid his optic closed again, and a mournful sounding warble escaped his synthesizer.

But before Auto could descend much further into his melancholy, Wall-E intervened. Feeling even bolder still, he reached up and grabbed Auto's spoke, giving it a slight yank to get his optic on him once more. When the pilot's eye opened, Wall-E quirked his own eyes up into their 'hopeful' position, and offered the bubble wrap again.

Hesitantly, Auto reached out with his claw, finally getting the bubble wrap in his grip and squeezing. POP POP POP. He really couldn't pop the bubbles individually that way, but he wasn't about to stop now. The bridge echoed a little with the sound of pops, the only other sounds being Auto and Wall-E's servos as the pilot laid waste to the bubbles and the trash bot moved the sheet around for him.

Finally, there was only one bubble left to pop. As Auto tried to reach it, a pudgy hand came into view and popped the bubble before he could. Startled, the two bots jolted back a bit, only to find Captain McCrea standing beside them.

McCrea spoke after they'd recovered from their surprise, focusing on Auto. "This is about Captain Reardon? You miss him?"

Auto glided over to the consoles, stabbing a button with one spoke. It brought up the video feed from the Captain's Quarters, displaying the row of portraits in the room below. He faced the video and not his current Captain, sounding a little offended. "I miss them all. I miss being talked to. I miss being truly useful. I miss flying my ship. I miss the way things were . . ."

The human stepped forward and stood beside Auto, feeling brave enough to reach up with one hand and grip his wheel briefly. McCrea looked at the captains that came before along with his pilot, his expression somewhere between sad and hopeful. "Auto, things can't go back to the way they were, you know that. But, I can try a little harder to be a better captain for you. Probably won't live up to them but I'll try my best!"

Auto turned to face his captain, his faceplates retracted in surprise. "Captain? Do you truly mean that?" He looked McCrea in the eyes, looking for any sign he was lying, but only found sincerity there. "Thank you, Captain."

McCrea grinned widely, glad to have finally gotten some progress with the stubborn wheel. "It's no problem, Auto; this just reminded me that I have to look after ALL of my friends. So, how about we work on the talking thing first . . . can you tell me more about Captain Reardon?"

The pilot nodded, eager to get started. "Well, we first met in the Buy and Large Robotics labs near the docks where they were building the Axiom . . ."

Wall-E, now forgotten about by both pilot bot and captain, nodded to himself and turned to leave as Auto began his story. His work done, he decided to leave the two to their bonding, and disappeared into the elevator without either of them noticing.


	10. Gotta catch 'em All? 2

Okay, this one is dedicated to netbug009 . . . hope this helps you feel a little better!

Gotta Catch 'Em All? 2

* * *

"Chimchar?"

"Not possible."

It was adding up to be another strange day in Reika's lab, as one recently awakened fire monkey stared curiously at the hovering autopilot in front of him. For his part, Auto regarded the Chimchar warily, all too ready to draw his shockprod and stun the little beast if it decided to get rowdy like the last strange creature did.

Reika looked up from where she was getting a few tools in order, just noticing Auto had come in. "Oh, good morning, Auto; I didn't hear you come in. I see you've met your latest little brother . . . he's called a Chimchar. He's not quite as useful as a Pikachu, but he'll be nice to have around if you need a portable heat source. He's also cute as a button . . . maybe we can use him to teach kids how to be safe around fire, once everything's a little more settled."

Chimchar sniffed at Auto a little bit. On deciding the pilot wasn't a threat, the monkey crawled to the spot on the floor Auto was hovering over, as if trying to figure out how the bot was hanging in midair. Auto hovered backwards a foot, earning a short screech of surprise from Chimchar when he swept his scanning laser over him. The readings just didn't add up, and the pilot couldn't help but voice that. "Not possible; this 'Chimchar' is defying the laws of physics. How can he have a flaming tail without burning himself?"

Reika looked to the fire monkey herself, almost studying him a bit. "His fur seems to have a lot of properties in common with fireproof insulation, so that would help." At that point she realized how wary Auto was just being within a few feet of Chimchar, so she tried to reassure him. "Oh, come on, you can stand to be more friendly with him." She held up what looked to be an odd ball-shaped red and white device. "I'm prepared this time; this thing will keep him from roasting anyone randomly."

"Oh, all right. At least I'm a bit more protected against fire." Sighing in resignation, Auto hovered closer to Chimchar, holding out his claw for a handshake.

Chimchar recognized the gesture as one Reika had done with him, so he reached up and shook Auto's claw eagerly. After a moment of that, the monkey got a bit of a smirk on his face, and used his grip as leverage to clamber up onto Auto's frame. He got a few proud calls of triumph out before Auto flicked open his shockprod and activated it, causing the monkey to shriek in fear and start climbing higher.

Aiming a disapproving glare at Auto, Reika scolded him. "Auto, put that away! He's a monkey, they like climbing things. It might be a little embarrassing but he's not going to hurt you . . . he just wants to play."

It took him half a minute, but Auto eventually deactivated his shockprod. "Very well, Mother . . . I just hope no one else sees this."

Chimchar had almost been on top of Auto's hover unit, but on seeing the danger was gone, he slid back down again. Climbing onto the top of Auto's wheel, being careful not to get his fur caught in the bot's still spinning processor strips, he hung upside down from his feet and stared into the pilot's optic. A somewhat nervous but still friendly "Eeek eek" escaped from the monkey, and he waved at Auto while still hanging upside down.

Auto finally settled down after that, muttering faintly, "I suppose he is sort of cute . . ."


	11. Early Discovery

For a bit of backstory, let's just say Auto acted a lot more openly when a plant showed up on the Axiom for the first time . . .

* * *

She had a golf club in one hand, a yellowed and dying potted plant in the other, and Captain Fee was unlikely to drop either of them in the next few minutes. Namely because the plant was what had her autopilot so riled up, and the golf club was the only thing keeping him back at the moment. The lucky (or perhaps unlucky) Eve unit that found the plant was in the captain's quarters with her, but the probe was worse than useless as the poor thing had no idea who to help first.

Fee sliced through the air again with the club when it seemed Auto was creeping closer. "I told you to stay back! You're not getting this unless you tell me what your problem is, so stop trying to sneak up on me!"

Auto didn't move closer, but he reached out with his claw. He didn't dare extend it into Fee's striking range; he'd already gotten a dent or two and his diagnostics were fighting with his directives over what action to take. Ignoring the damage reports as best he could, he demanded, "Captain, give me the plant."

If Fee had a free hand to facepalm with, she probably would have. As it was, she rolled her eyes. "I know you bots have one track minds, but this is getting ridiculous, Auto. Last thing I remember is you're supposed to be taking MY orders, not the other way around." An idea dawned on her as she said that, and she smirked. "Orders? That's it! Okay Auto, since you're not answering me if I just ask, I order you to tell me what's going on!"

Auto was about to try to rush his captain again, but Fee's order made him freeze in place. His processor strips whirled as his directives conflicted with each other, and he desperately tried to reason out a decision pathway that would satisfy them all. In the end he truly couldn't hit all the finer points of his directives, but what he came up with was enough to resolve the conflict and relieve the horrible tension wracking his frame. "Aye aye, sir."

Fee watched her pilot cautiously as he darted over to the large holoscreen in the rear of the room. Auto tapped in a button sequence with one spoke, and the captain found herself faced with an antique video that she was NOT supposed to see. There was Shelby Forthright, looking almost nothing like he had in the earlier video the computer had shown her, and the set around him was trashed. Then he started speaking, only confirming that something had gone horribly wrong on Earth.

The video finished, and Fee was momentarily speechless. She recovered quickly, though. "Wait a minute, that message is at least a hundred years old . . . maybe things have changed since then. Computer, compare the logs of all the probe missions we've sent, focusing on toxicity levels. Make sure to include the last run."

"Processing . . ." After a moment, a graph appeared on the holoscreen, displaying toxicity levels on Earth throughout the Axiom's entire cruise. It was at it's highest in 2110, and while it was dissipating by minute fractions of a percent year by year, the levels were still far beyond human tolerances.

Thinking that surely that info would be enough, Auto held out his claw again. "Captain, the plant?"

Fee shook her head, even though she ultimately knew what the outcome would be. "Not yet; this plant survived somehow, even if it is dying now." She turned to the previously ignored Eve. "Probe 1, get the memory scanner out of my console and show me where you found this."

The Eve probe did as she was told, gliding over to the holoscreen console and retrieving the memory scanner. She operated the controls herself as the captain still had her hands full, quickly advancing to the place she'd found the plant. To Fee's eyes it looked like one of the old agriculture labs she'd seen in educational holovids. They were usually sealed off from the outside, and if Eve broke into that one, then surely any other plants that might have been there were dead. Either way, the plant she held had no bearing on what conditions on Earth were actually like.

Finally, Fee sighed, relenting and holding out the plant for Auto to take. "Here, take it. It's dying anyway, and the other data makes it irrelevant." Auto darted forward as eagerly as she'd ever seen him do, grabbing the plant in his claw and then throwing it down the garbage chute. She thought he almost seemed to relax a little once the plant was out of sight, but she could've been seeing things.

After a brief moment of quiet, Fee addressed Auto again, pointing at the graph that was still displayed. "Auto, I want you to listen to me. You can read that as well as I can; the toxicity levels are slowly dropping. Probably not in my lifetime, or the lifetimes of your next few captains, but Earth will be inhabitable again someday. It's not humanity's fate to wander the stars forever . . . it's not yours, either. I just hope when that day comes, you're able to help your captain rather than be consumed by your directives."

Auto looked about as confused as he could get. "I do not understand."

Fee just shook her head, chuckling softly despite earlier circumstances. "Didn't expect you to get it right now, don't worry. Someday, hopefully, but not right now."

There was a confused warble, and captain and pilot both turned to face the Eve unit that was still there with them. Fee sighed again, knowing that she couldn't let the probe bot remember any of this incident. "Sorry Eve, but we're going to have to wipe everything you saw here along with your last mission record . . . I can't have you getting everyone's hopes up when we're staying out here."

The Eve probe merely saluted, not really having enough personality yet to see what the captain thought was so wrong about a memory wipe.

* * *

A short time later, the shutters around the bridge and captain's quarters' windows went back up to their open position. Captain Fee soon appeared on the big holoscreen outside. "Sorry folks, looks like that was a false alarm . . . I guess we'll have to adjust the Eves' sensitivity a little bit more. In any case, enjoy the rest of your day!"


	12. Magical Girls Do Not Compute

I want to cross over Wall-E and Madoka Magica somehow … I pretty much have the mental image of Kyoko holding Auto at spearpoint, no real clue how she got there other than the possibility of witches/demons and Kyubey's kind would've followed humanity into space after the planet was ruined.

Could be either timeline, though I imagine it would work better with the Goddess timeline (Homura would still be rewinding shit if it wasn't, tbh). Would pretty much fall into bad shit going down on the Axiom, but there are magical girls stowed away…

—-

Auto was not entirely sure what had kicked him out of sleep mode, but the rather strange sensor reading originating from near the Lido Deck's pool was his first clue. It seemed like something was milling about aimlessly, something that was not supposed to be on his ship. He couldn't get a clear reading on whatever it was, but there was some sort of space/time distortion down there? **"Not possible."**

"Oh, it's very possible, one-eye… I'm surprised you're even picking anything up, though."

The wheel-shaped autopilot startled at the voice that suddenly sounded from behind him, then turned to face its owner. How on Earth had this red-haired girl managed to sneak up on him? Surely he would've gotten some sort of life signs, wouldn't he? Auto ran a diagnostic on his shock prod to make sure it was ready for use, then swept his scanner over the new arrival. For her part she did hold still for it, and this quickly revealed to the pilot that she was indeed an intruder as well as a stowaway. **"You do not appear in any passenger records. Identify yourself and state your intentions."**

The girl took a moment to finish off the meal-in-a-cup she had with her, idly chucking the empty into one of the trash chutes. "My name's not gonna mean much, tin can, and neither will my intentions…"

Wrong answer. Auto activated his shock prod, electricity crackling at its tip. **"Identify yourself and state your intentions; I will not ask again."**

Somehow, before the pilot even knew what happened, the girl was behind him again. When Auto turned to face her, the point of a very big spear was aimed dangerously close to the center of his optic. She smirked, perhaps a bit savagely. "Be careful where you point that thing, you could hurt someone~ … well, since you'll probably be a total pain until I do tell you, fine. I'm Kyoko, and I'm here to do something about the little problem on your pool deck down there."


End file.
